2020 Far North Queensland
 

Home - Sun 26/07/2020

2020 Far North Queensland
Next morning, it's time to go. Joan and Roger are always extremely hospitable and always make us feel special. We are scheduled to meet friends of ours at the Gold Coast Surf Life Saving (SLS) Club, about and hour's drive to the south. On the M1 going south, a fierce rain storm develops which buffets our large and heavy car around. I and all the cars around me drop speed because it's almost impossible to see. The wipers can't keep up.
By the time we get to the SLS Club, the rain is still bucketing down and the wind is extremely strong. I fight to keep the umbrella from turning inside out. We're about an hour early so Jenni sends Linda and Franz a text to let them know that we're here. We sign into the club as visitors and complete the Covid tracking details. The rain becomes even more intense.
Linda and Franz arrive maybe 15 minutes later and it's great to see them. Linda was a work friend of mine at the RTA in Sydney and, when she moved to the Gold Coast, got a job with the QLD Govt roads authority doing similar work in traffic management systems. In the intervening years Linda and Franz became Grannies. We have a coffee and tart while we catch up with all the gossip. A short time later, the storm blows over and people are frolicking on the beach.
That's Coolangatta in the distance and NSW is just on the other side of it. The weather is so nice, we sit outside in the sunshine to continue our catch-up and watch the people surfing and playing on the beach. We leave Linda and Franz circa 11:30 and begin the trip home. The trip home. Ah! the trip home, what a trip! A short time after saying goodbye to Linda and Franz, we cross back into NSW.
For a while, it is easy motorway driving except for the rain starting again. Our plan is to stop at Kempsie and stay overnight to allow us to pick Mackie up at a reasonable hour on our way home tomorrow. We get to Kempsie and figure it's only another 350 km to home, so why not keep going? We keep going and the rain becomes horrendous. Jenni calls ahead and tells Mia that we're going home and we'll come back and pick Mackie up tomorrow. Mia very kindly offers to get Mackie ready for us so that we can pick him up on our way through tonight instead. We pick Mackie up at about 7:30 pm in the pouring rain. We continue on and the rain continues to bucket down and it is very dark. The drive from Kempsie is extremely demanding and very dangerous, particularly with the spray that large trucks throw everywhere. I'm content to travel at 97 km/h instead of 110 and to make it home safely. However that means trucks and four-door utes keep barrelling past and spraying us with blinding clouds of water. For much of the last three hours all I can see is red, white or orange lane-marking dots as I drive between them. I am much faster than some and much slower than most - but we make it home.
It was a fantastic holiday. I never got tired behind the wheel and the car performed flawlessly. Some stats: Round trip total 5600 kms, Fuel consumption 10.8 L/100 kms, Distance driven today 894 km. So what's with the picture? The internet booking company asks for our recommendation about our (shortened) stay in the Atherton B&B. I respond in the negative and the program goes into a loop as though searching for something. I leave it "searching" overnight and it is still looping next morning. Earlier in the trip I had tried to leave a negative review from my iPad and it did a similar but very different thing with the result that I never got to leave my negative comments from either platform. Funny innit? 2029-07-13FNQld-21 2029-07-13FNQld-22 END OF THE JOURNEY - Click to go to home page
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